


We’re In This Together

by mackenziemchale



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Comfort fic, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Love, Married Life, Post S3, Post Series, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Will has a nightmare, they both discuss their ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29984685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mackenziemchale/pseuds/mackenziemchale
Summary: Back at it again with a one shot talking about Will & Mac’s ptsd because it was never talked about in the show!!Also not gonna lie to you guys, I didn’t proofread this one as much as I usually do so I apologize for any errors.Enjoy ❤️
Relationships: Will McAvoy/MacKenzie McHale
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	We’re In This Together

**Author's Note:**

> Back at it again with a one shot talking about Will & Mac’s ptsd because it was never talked about in the show!!
> 
> Also not gonna lie to you guys, I didn’t proofread this one as much as I usually do so I apologize for any errors.
> 
> Enjoy ❤️

Mac lays staring at her laptop screen, the brightness dimmed as low as she could get it without completely losing sight of the screen. It was 2:47 in the morning and most nights since she and Will got back together (not counting when he was in jail), Mac usually got a good night’s sleep. However, there were still those nights where she’d be up for hours on end. 

It happened in various ways. Sometimes those nights would be that she couldn’t lull herself to sleep because the same image of one of the guys she was embedded with, and had taken a liking to (platonically), being blown up right in front of her eyes. Sometimes the nights were her falling asleep with Will next to her, but then she’d wake up only a few hours later from a lifelike nightmare of when she was stabbed. And sometimes Will was awake with her during those nightmares, but sometimes he wasn’t and she hated to wake him. The other times she was just afraid of falling asleep because of what it _might_ bring. 

Tonight was one of those nights. Mac just had a feeling if she fell asleep for too long, her brain would pick the first horrendous memory it could find and make it so it felt like she was living through it again. And while being in therapy seemed to be helping, tonight she wasn’t having it. She’d slept only for a few hours before her anxiety woke her up. 

She’d gone between laying in bed trying to distract herself to checking on their two year old daughter, Charlie, in her room just a few doors down from theirs. Each time Charlie was fine, fast asleep, but Mac couldn’t help to continue checking. She didn’t even realize it until starting therapy that it wasn’t _just_ a protective thing, Mac struggled with anxiety over the fear of losing Charlie because she’d lost so much. Even though she believed she had a great life, it didn’t make the anxiety go away. 

Mac types away at her keyboard as quietly as she can even though Will was a heavy sleeper. She was currently in the process of putting together a to-do list with the millions of things she needed to get done. It was already a page long and she’d only just begun. She sighs as she quickly examines the list, knowing full well she’d never get all of this done, life was too busy.

While she’s making her list, Mac glances over to Will every now and then. Part of it was to check in on him and the other was because she loved seeing him next to her. They’d been married for three years and she still sometimes couldn’t believe she got to end her nights and start her days with him every single day.

As she goes to take another look at him about five minutes later, Mac notices that Will was starting to stir a little. It was hard to entirely make out his face in the dark, so she reaches over to the lamp next to her and turns it on. Returning back to Will, she notices that he was scrunching his face up as he slept, still slightly stirring. 

At first, she doesn’t think too much of it. He was probably having some weird and unpleasant dream. But, just as she’s about to turn out the light and carry on with her list, Will begins to toss and turn in the bed while mumbling incoherently.

Mac turns back to him, leaving the lamp on and begins to grow concerned as he continues tossing and turning. Instead of waiting any longer for him to do anything else beside thrash around in bed, she springs into action and moves over in bed, carefully trying to wake him so she won’t scare him anymore than he already was. 

It takes a couple minutes, but Mac is finally able to wake Will up and his response hadn’t been what she was expecting. He immediately sat up in their bed, panting heavily as she quietly tried to reassure him that he was okay.

It’s while she’s trying to calm him down, watching a few tears escape from his eyes that she realizes how this was nearly identical to how she would act whenever waking up from a PTSD infused nightmare. 

As her hand continues rubbing up and down his back, she looks down as she feels him grab her other hand and instantly hold it in a death grip. Like he needed to know she was there and not going anywhere. And it breaks her heart, because she knows he doesn’t have much outside of their little family and their work family. 

Will’s breathing slows back down to normal within a few minutes, but Mac keeps her hand in the same position on his back. She quietly sits with him, resting her head on his shoulder. She knew there were still tears rolling down his cheeks and she was going to sit there with him for as long as he needed.

⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀●●●⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀

She wasn’t sure how long they sat there together in bed, her hand repeating the same motion of rubbing up and down his back while her other squeezed his own ever so often. At some point he’d told her that he was okay and slowly let go of her hand before pulling out of her grasp. He had been out of bed before she could say a word and she just watched as he left the room, knowing he was going to Charlie’s room to check on her.

It was five or so minutes until Mac finally stepped into the doorway of Charlie’s room to find Will standing over her crib, watching over her as she slept. 

Tiptoeing her way over to them, she presses her hand carefully to his shoulder as she reaches him. She smiles at the sight of their resting daughter and opens her mouth to say something but doesn’t get the chance as Will whispers, “she looks so much like you.”

Her lips turn into another smile at that and she nods as her eyes look over the features Charlie shared with her. Her brunette hair that was growing longer every day, her tiny nose, her facial structure. Most of it was all Mac. “The McHale genes don’t exactly back down,” she jokes.

The chuckle that comment got from him was quick and quiet and he nods, “believe me, I know.”

Mac finally breaks her gaze on their daughter and turns it to him, “is there anything I can do for you?” He hadn’t said anything about how he felt or what his nightmare had been about and he certainly didn’t have to, but Mac didn’t want him to feel like he wasn’t alone or that she didn’t care. She most definitely cared.

He shrugs as he turns to look at Mac, “I think I just want to stay here with her for a little while.”

She nods, “okay.” Leaning forward, she gives him a kiss on the forehead and gently presses her hand to his arm before pulling away from Charlie’s crib. 

⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀●●●⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ 

Mac lays in bed, deciding to read a book to pass the time as she gave Will the alone time he wanted. As she’s reading, she glances over at the clock and sees that it was nearing 3:30am. It was a good thing that they didn’t have to go in tomorrow, because they weren’t going to be getting much sleep. They were probably going to only get a few hours because Charlie usually woke up around seven in the morning and at least one or both of them needed to be awake to take care of her.

It’s nearing 4am by the time Mac hears his footsteps approaching their room. Placing aside the book, her eyes meet his as he walks into the room with exhaustion painted on his face. She sticks out her bottom lip in pout upon seeing him and opens her arms, feeling awful that he was going through this.

He sinks into her arms with ease once he reaches their bed and sighs. Will honestly thought after years of going to therapy, he wouldn’t have to deal with dreams of his childhood and his abusive father anymore but they still came. Just not as often. 

“I know I already asked… but if there’s anything I can do, please let me know,” Mac insists and runs her fingers through his hair while her other hand rubs along his back. She not only felt awful that he was having to deal with his PTSD, but she also felt bad that she hadn’t done anything for him besides help him calm down from the dream. It always felt like every time she had a panic attack, a nightmare, or god forbid a trigger that took her back to that time that he was always there by her side doing something to help her through it. She just felt she hadn’t done nearly enough.

But then again, Will tended to handle things differently than she did. She could come undone easily, but he would take things and hold them inside of him until eventually he exploded. He’d gotten better about that with the help of therapy, but there were still times where he held back. 

Will pulls his chin off her shoulder to look at her and shakes his head, “I don’t need you to do anything besides just being here.”

Mac stares into his eyes for a moment and nods, accepting what he wanted even if she still felt like there was more she could do.

He meets her halfway in a gentle, soft kiss then pulls away and brings her down onto the bed with him. 

Mac does as he wants, which is cuddling up under the sheets. His arm was tight around her as she laid her head down on his bare chest. Her hand rubs up part of his chest and her fingers graze through his chest hair in the process. She repeats this motion a few times as they lay in silence. 

It’s five minutes before either says anything and Mac is the one to break the silence, “did you want to talk about it…? The nightmare I mean.”

Will doesn’t answer at first, because his first instinct still is to throw his walls up and lock his feelings in a box then throw away the key. He feels like everyday he’s still unlearning not to be that way, especially with Mackenzie because there wasn’t anything he couldn’t tell her and he knew that.

“It um, ahem,” he clears his throat a couple seconds later, “it wasn’t just one memory my brain decided to remind me about. It was like a whole fucking reel, like I was strapped down to a chair and I was being forced to relive the memories.”

It hurts her heart to hear that, because she can’t imagine how hard that had to have been for him, but she stays quiet to signal that she was listening.

Will continues, “when I was 15 I came home from school one day to my mom screaming and crying because my dad, who was drunk of course, was hitting her and I got in between as fast as I could because even though I was lanky I had some muscles and I was used to being the one who stood up to him. My mom she uh, she tried to intervene like she always did…” he sighs as he trails off but continues, “that time was the worst of it because he pushed her so hard that she fell into the wall behind her and was knocked unconscious.”

That memory isn’t the only one that plagued his nightmare and isn’t the only one that he tells her about. By the end of telling her about all of this, they were in a completely different position. Mac was holding him again, this time much tighter than she had when he first woke up from the nightmare. And this time he was crying much harder, because even though he’d gone over this in therapy even before Jacob succeeded his father, it still affected him. He knew how to cope, but the emotions of it all and reliving it could still be overwhelming.

Mac pulls him from her now tear soaked shirt and wipes the remaining tears from his face as he quietly sniffles. Her fingers run through his hair before her hand rests on his face.

“I’m sorry for completely losing it,” he whispers.

She shakes her head while her thumb gently strokes his warm, tear stained cheek, “you don’t have anything to apologize for. There’s two things I want you to know: one, that I love you so much and two, that while our situations are completely different, I know what you’re going through with PTSD. You’re never going to be alone in this okay? Because even though we handle it differently… I understand. I know what it’s like to be scared to fall asleep or be haunted by the horrible things we’ve gone through. You’ve pulled me out of a lot of nightmares and helped me down from many panic attacks so it’s important to me that you know that I’m _always_ here to do the same.”

Will nods and presses his hand over hers and brings it off his face then turns it so that he can press a kiss to it. Her lips curve into a small smile as he does and as her hand leaves his lips, she returns it to his own and locks their fingers together. She doesn’t hesitate another moment after that and leans forward, pressing her lips against his. 

When they break apart, Mac presses her forehead against his and lets her hand fall out of his grasp as he reaches to brush her hair out of her face. 

Silence falls between them for a few minutes as they try to just focus on each other and nothing else. However, Mac is the one to break the silence by asking, “do you think you want to try and go back to sleep?”

“Only if you try too,” Will insists, knowing that she hadn’t slept much at all tonight. 

“I can’t promise that I’ll fall asleep.”

“I know,” he hums and runs his fingers through her hair, “but just try, for me,” he insists. 

“Okay… I’ll try… for you,” Mac agrees.

⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀●●●⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ 

Mac finds herself awake and as if a heaviness is sitting on top of her. Not a bad heaviness, not a sad on either, but more a heaviness from her exhaustion. It was like she slept so hard that it made her even more tired. She almost forgot where she was at first when waking up, but after a few seconds her brain reminded her. She didn’t know what time it was, but knew Will wasn’t in bed with her. 

Rubbing her eyes, Mac shifts toward the bedside table and reads that it was 10am, meaning she slept for a good five and a half hours. It was more than she was expecting to get. Taking a moment to stretch, Mac groans as she does then sighs before pulling herself out of bed. 

She still felt somewhat heavy as she walked out of their room, but thankfully she didn’t feel like a complete zombie. Yawning, Mac makes her way down the hall to Charlie’s room since her first instinct was to check on her right away.

Upon entering her room, Mac stops in the doorway as she sees Will sitting in the rocking chair by Charlie’s crib. His eyes were closed as he sat back relaxed, with Charlie fast asleep on his chest. 

That instantly brings a smile to her face, god it was so adorable to see him like that with their daughter. It made her chest burn with love.

“Good morning,” she greets tiredly, having a feeling he was only resting and not asleep.

His eyes instantly open upon hearing her voice and he smiles, “someone’s finally up.”

Mac yawns in response and nods, “sorry,” she says as she steps further into the room, “had a late night.”

He quietly chuckles so not to disturb Charlie and it doesn’t, because she stays fast asleep, “yeah? did all that partying keep you up all night?”

She chuckles in return and nods with a half smile painted on her face, “yep, that’s exactly what kept me up.” Mac finally reaches him at the rocking chair and keeps the same smile as she looks down at Charlie. 

“How long have you been here?” She asks.

He shrugs, “half hour maybe. I’ve been up with her since seven though. You were completely out of it so I just let you rest.”

Mac nods, “well thank you for that.”

“Sleep well?”

“Yeah, but I feel a bit like a zombie.”

He quietly chuckles again and nods, knowing the feeling.

Mac then leans down and kisses the top of his head, “how are you feeling?” she asks as she presses a hand to his arm.

Will looks back and up at her, “I’m… alright. I’ve just been sitting here reminding myself how lucky I am.”

She rubs her hand along his arm and nods before kissing his cheek this time, “have you eaten? I can make breakfast.”

“I haven’t… but breakfast sounds wonderful.”

Mac nods again and presses a whisper of a kiss to Charlie’s head before standing up straight again. She then begins to walk over toward the door and on her way Will says, “thank you.”

She stops at the doorway and looks back at him, another smile wiped across her face, “I love you,” she returns before disappearing down the hall and toward the kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, feel free to leave a kudos or a comment if you feel up to it.
> 
> Thank you for reading ❤️
> 
> Until the next ❤️


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